Though the nesting season is over he will sing for some
weeks yet.
So they come and go through the happy golden hours; now the nasal
notes of the nuthatch or the "pleek" of a downy woodpecker in the
pasture, followed by the twittering tones of the chimney-swifts
zigzagging across the sea of blue above, like busy tugboats darting
from side to side of a harbor. Crows string over the woods close to
the tops of the trees, watching with piercing eyes for lone and
hapless fledglings. A cuckoo droops from a tall wild cherry tree on
one side of the road to a tangle of wild grape on the other; he peers
out and gives his rain-crow call. So is the warp of the summer woven
of bird-flight and threaded through with song.
* * * * *
When evening comes the sun's last smiles reach far into the timber and
linger lovingly on the boles of the trees with a tender beauty.
Wood-flowers face the vanishing light and hold it until the scalloped
edges of the oak leaves etched against the sky have been blurred by
the gathering darkness. Long streams of cinnabar and orange flare up
in the western sky. Salmon-colored clouds float into sight, grow gray
and gradually melt away. In the dusky depths of the woods the thrush
sings his thrilling, largo appassionato, requiem to the dying day.
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